Stellaris News

by Eladrin

Saddle up, everyone! It’s time to go a-ranchin’!

The Vivarium of the Grand Archive will be accepting genetic material donations as of October 29th.

Today we’re looking at the capture and domestication of spaceborne fauna, Domestication traditions, and the Beastmaster civics. Let’s get to it, this is a long one!
[h3]Vivariums and Hatcheries​[/h3]
The Vivarium is essentially a space fauna breeding and observation tank. You can access it under Discoveries as soon as your Vivarium capacity is above zero or the Gravity Snares technology has been researched.

The Hatchery module is the space fauna equivalent of Shipyards, and can only be built on a station that has no normal Shipyards. It’s unlocked by the Artificial Breeding technology.

You can also increase your capacity by building Vivarium Tanks. These increase the growth rate of your docked fauna and are unlocked by the Gravity Snares technology. Building a Grand Archive will give you the biggest boost to Vivarium capacity.



This particular Vivarium isn’t terribly interesting yet though. We need to find some friends!

I also won’t be able to fit much in this Vivarium. I should build a Grand Archive and some supplemental Tanks.

[h3]Capturing Space Fauna​[/h3]
The Gravity Snares technology lets your science ships attempt to capture wild Space Fauna.

Oh yeah, culling and dissecting also happens at the Vivarium.​

You can launch a Gravity Snare from an adjacent system to attempt to capture wild space fauna that are peacefully… Actually, to be honest, those are Crystalline Entities and there’s nothing peaceful about them. While I bet they’d make a good addition to our fleet, I said we should find some friends so let’s go get some Tiyanki instead.

You need to know the basics about the creature before being able to tune the Gravity Snares appropriately, so you’ll have to finish the first contact process before you can capture them. There’s a cost and a cooldown to capture attempts, and as you unlock various technologies, the capture chance and the number that you can capture at once will increase. Other technologies like Cloaking and Jump Drives will also improve your Gravity Snares - the first increases their capture rate, the second lets them instantly send your new friend to your vivarium instead of taking a little while to transfer them.

We’ve added Capture Space Fauna to Science Ship Automation Settings too.​

The Gravity Snare will fly to the adjacent system and attempt to capture their target. It will generally attempt to capture random breeding age adults if there are any in the target group.





Success! We done caught ourselves a common Tiyanki cow! Since she’s cruiser sized, she takes up 4 of our Vivarium capacity, and is very, very lonely.

Space fauna inside the Vivarium grow at an accelerated rate. Life is easy when you’re being fed by advanced alien ranchers, and the only worry you have is that “Cull” button.

By the way, “Auto-Culling” is the most “Stellaris” button ever created.​

We could use a few more. Space fauna have growth stages and breeding requirements that vary by species. For example, Tiyanki require a mating partner, Crystals and Amoebas reproduce asexually, and Voidworms… They’re special. I’ll talk more about them next week.

Ti’yan’ek needs another Tiyanki to breed. We could fly around trying to find them, or we can bring them to us with a Voidlure. Voidlures are a Starbase building (unlocked by completing the Domestication traditions) that attract a specific species of space fauna, and must be built in their favored habitat. (Space Amoebas like Nebulas, Crystalline Entities like Pulsars, and so on.)



Every month there’s a chance that any captive fauna that can breed will automatically do so, which will put them on a cooldown before they can reproduce again. This will be visible under “Reproductive Status”.

My collection of Crystals​

Culling fauna will provide resources (which varies depending on the species) as well as their genetic material. Having a creature’s genetic material allows you to grow clones of them at your Hatchery. Exceptional creatures (marked by their rarity) have increased combat stats and culling rewards. Cloned fauna will always use the highest rarity available, and you can upgrade existing fleets if you acquire

Sorry buddy, I need you for parts.​

Generally you’ll clone fauna at the smallest size and they’ll grow up over time, but technologies exist that will let you force-grow them to start at a larger growth stage.

Ship tooltips will let you know how long it is until they’ll reach their next growth stage.​

Since larger space fauna take up more Naval Capacity, there are times that you may want to prevent their growth - you can prevent them from exceeding the command limit of a fleet by changing their Growth Stance. You can also block them from exceeding your overall Naval Capacity in policies.



[h3]Unnatural Selection​[/h3]
The Controlled Mutations technology lets you make some changes to the fauna you have captured when you’re creating clones. This lets you use a variant of the Ship Designer to “redesign” them and make use of special mutation component slots.

Space fauna Mutations are tied to other technologies, but won’t clutter the tooltips unless you have Controlled Mutations.

I’m pretty sure that Space Amoeba needs LASER EYES.​

Mutations can be broadly classified as Offensive, Defensive, or Special, but you can freely use those slots however you want to customize your Fauna. (Barring restrictions on the components themselves, like how you can still only have one Cloaking mutation.) You can alter their behavior (in a way similar to combat computers) by installing neurochips.

The different space fauna have different resource costs and upkeeps, and those upkeep costs are reduced if they’re in their preferred habitat.

You can (and probably should) also create designs for what your Fauna will grow into if you allow them to. You can change the current growth stage by clicking on the “Pick Creature Size” button.



[h3]Domestication Traditions and Beastmasters​[/h3]
The Domestication Traditions can be taken once you have the Artificial Breeding technology. It’s focused, as one might expect, on improving your space fauna.



The Metabolic Regulation policy allows you to increase fauna growth rate and upkeep, or freeze their growth but reduce upkeep.​

As with the Galactic Curator civics, if you want to go all-in on space beasties, you can take one of the Beastmaster civics. These civics dramatically increase the upkeep of artificial ships, but give you everything you’ll need to fully embrace the rancher life.



Beastmasters replace their Hatcheries and Shipyards with dual-use Beastports. These can clone space fauna like a Hatchery but also have rudimentary shipbuilding capabilities and are able to build civilian vessels, so you won’t need to keep a shipyard around just for your colony, construction, and science ships.

[h3]A Note on Space Fauna and “Bio-Ships”​[/h3]
While this space fauna breeding system scratches a lot of the “bio-ship” itch, we don’t consider them exactly the same systems. These are more like vicious mutated pets than meat-ships you fly around in. Expect that one day in the future we’ll explore that idea.
[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Next week we’ll be examining the new lifeforms in the galaxy and the two new origins.

See you then!

by Eladrin

Hello, everyone!

The Grand Archive opens its doors on October 29th.

Today we take a look at the Grand Archive structure itself, specimen collection and display mechanics, and then examine the new Archivism tradition tree.
[h3]What is a Grand Archive?​[/h3]
The Grand Archive is the cultural center for your empire, a place to house and display the story of your people through the greatest specimens of interest that you have collected over the years.

This one-stage structure can be built over any colony with 25 or more pops, and will not block other improvements such as Orbital Rings. We expect that most empires will want to build them over their capital world, to keep their treasures close.

The Galactic Archivism technology required for building a Grand Archive can appear as a tier 2 society tech, and as such building a Grand Archive does not require high tier technologies such as Mega-Engineering.

Shortly after you have discovered your first Specimen worthy of display, you have the chance to invest in the concept of a Grand Archive - if you pass on this opportunity, it can show up later as normal in your Society research options.

A collection that embraces the whole galaxy allows you to consider the whole galaxy. That is what an institution such as the Grand Archive is for.

Grand Archives can be built by any empire, including genocidal empires like Fanatic Purifiers, even if they have a more proactive stand on turning their neighbors into “historical interests” earlier than one would otherwise expect.

A closer look at the Grand Archive. The color scheme matches your empire flag and chosen shipset.

[h3]Specimen Collection and Display​[/h3]
An Archive with nothing to display within it is simply a building. (And an expensive one at that.) Luckily, fascinating moments worth remembering occur all the time in Stellaris, so the Grand Archive Story Pack has added 151 unique Specimens to events, archaeology sites, and other content from across the base game and the new content added in the Story Pack. The team has gone through all of the other Stellaris content as well, giving us a final total of over 240 Specimens to collect, study, and appreciate. (Ancient Relics, Distant Stars, and Astral Planes, as our most exploration-focused releases, benefited the most from this pass.) The Specimen Collection system requires the Grand Archive Story Pack.

A symbol is shown when you have acquired a Specimen of interest - occasionally these are tied to a specific choice in an event, while other times they may be linked to your Origin or actions that you have taken.

Newly acquired Specimens appear in a toast to give you a quick look at what you’ve found.

Give me an archive, and I will fill it.

Sometimes Specimens will instead find you.​

The Discoveries tab now allows you to explore your collection and choose which Specimens to have on display. Displaying Specimens has an initial cost (which increases with the number of Specimens of that category that you have on display) as well as ongoing upkeep (which is affected by Empire Size). Each Specimen has its own effects while on display - some produce a small amount of resources, while others might grant anything from Energy from Jobs to Cloned Fauna Growth Speed.

Each Specimen also has expanded lore, and keeps track of where and when you acquired it in the first place.





A toggle in the top right of the Specimen window lets you set whether or not you want to automatically put any new Specimens you acquire directly on display. You can also set up how you want to handle your overflow if not everything can be on display at once. You can have up to nine Specimens on display in each category - Aesthetic Wonders, Galactic History, and Xeno Geology.

[h3]How Else Can I Get Specimens?​[/h3]

Earlier I recommended building your Grand Archive close to the protected heart of your Empire. It’d be a terrible shame if something were to happen to it, after all.

The Grand Archive is great for seeing how excellent we were at stealing things​

The vile Yarrowreacheran Consensus stole three of my precious Specimens! Thankfully the rest of them are still safe, waiting for me to rebuild the Grand Archive and put them back on display.

Hey, that was mine! I even wrote my name on it!​

On the bright side, after spending some time working on our relations, they’re happy to trade it back to me.



You can also dig through your pile of Minor Artifacts to see if there’s anything worthwhile in there that got missed when you first acquired them.



Artifact Analysis can be performed up to five times, and has an increasing cost every time you use it.
[h3]Archivism Traditions and the Galactic Curator Civics[/h3]​
Once you’ve researched Galactic Archivism, the Archivism traditions become available. Empty shelves do not make for a wondrous attraction, but focusing on Archivism can help fill them up nicely.

Frontier Archaeology is my favorite.

Exhibition Specialization lets you focus your Archive’s output to one of the three Specimen categories, reducing the other two, and the Agenda associated with Archivism increases the chance of finding Archaeology Sites and increases Specimen Output.


Genocidal empires, having less use for Diplomatic Weight than many other Empires, replace Expert Negotiation with Galactic Reaping.

Let’s make (you) history.

If you’re really interested in having the best Grand Archive possible, there are the Galactic Curator civics. These civilizations all begin with Galactic Archivism as a guaranteed research option, one common Specimen of each category, and get a discount when dealing with the Curator Order. They also gain a 25% discount when actually building a Grand Archive, and have an increased chance to discover anomalies, but also tend to overwork their bureaucrats, reducing their effectiveness by a small amount. Nothing delights them more than a new find, though - Specimen discoveries and completion of Archaeology Sites grant them a Unity bonus.



[h3]The Curator Order​[/h3]
The Curator Order is dedicated to the protection of knowledge, and you can impress them with your collection should you share similar interests.



If your collection is substantial enough to attract their attention, you could ask them for various things - whether it be specialized museum plans, or help setting up cultural enrichment programs. Naturally, they’ll want to be compensated for their help.





Impress them enough, and they’ll even be willing to allow you to give them a generous donation in exchange for the honor of selecting a relic to care for from their collection.



There are fifteen relics being added to the Curators in the Grand Archive Story Pack, five associated with each of the three Specimen categories.

[h3]Meanwhile… A Little Something From the Custodians​[/h3]
The game setup screen has gotten a bit cumbersome over the years, with a huge number of options. We’re revisiting this screen in 3.14 “Circinus” to make things a little bit more understandable.

Pictures speak louder than words, so:

No more asking “which shape was Starburst again?”



[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Next week we’ll be going over the care and feeding of Tiyanki, the proper use of Gravity Snares and a Vivarium, and take a look at the Domestication traditions and Beastmasters civics.

See you then!

Pre-purchase Stellaris: Grand Archive alone or with a discount as part of Stellaris: Season 08!​

by PDX-Loke

Dear Stellaris Fans,

We've created another small patch for you, aiming to address a couple of noteworthy issues coming out of last week.

3.13.2 is available for download now.

[h3]3.13.2 Patch Notes[/h3]
Bugfix

• Fixed the issue where Gestalt Empire industrial districts only provided 1 Fabricator job instead of 2.
  
• Fixed the issue where the tooltip of a Cosmic Storm incorrectly stated 0 days remaining.
  
• Triggered species modifiers will now show in trait tooltips even when there are no regular modifiers.
  
• Fixed crash in species creation when trait for planet class does not exist.
  
• Fixed crash in espionage tooltip on multiplayer resync.
  

The team is now focusing their effort towards the next major patch.

More on that later!